From “Holding Fast” to “the ʿItrah Being the Rope of God”: An Analysis of the Fifth Aspect of the Evidentiary Significance of Hadith al-Thaqalayn in ʿAbaqāt al-Anwār and a Critique of ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Dihlawī’s Claim

The fifth article in the series rereading the sixty-six arguments in the response of Mīr Sayyid Ḥāmid Ḥusayn Hindī

Can deliverance from misguidance be tied to “holding fast” to the Prophet’s progeny while no role in guidance or religious authority is accorded to them? By claiming that “being that to which one must hold fast” does not necessarily entail “supreme leadership,” ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Dihlawī seeks to neutralize the Hadith of the Two Weighty Things as evidence for the Shiʿi position. In the fifth argument of ʿAbaqāt, Mīr Ḥāmid Ḥusayn targets precisely this point: he first demonstrates that, in the usage of Sunni exegetes and lexicographers, iʿtiṣām means holding fast, clinging firmly, and grasping a means of deliverance; he then takes a further step and, on the basis of a body of exegetical reports, establishes the relationship between the Prophet’s progeny and the “rope of God.” From “We are the rope of God” and “For they are two ropes that do not break” to the verses attributed to al-Shāfiʿī concerning the “ark of salvation” and the “saved sect,” the issue is no longer merely a lexical discussion; it concerns the place of the Prophet’s progeny in the means by which the community is guided after the Prophet (may God bless him and his family).

In Tuḥfa-yi Ithnā ʿAshariyya, after quoting the Hadith of the Two Weighty Things, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Dihlawī denies its relevance to the Imami position and bases his argument on the proposition that “that to which one must hold fast need not possess supreme leadership.” In ʿAbaqāt al-Anwār, Sayyid Ḥāmid Ḥusayn Mūsawī Nīshābūrī Hindī sets out sixty-six independent arguments to challenge this claim. The present study is the fifth article in a series examining these arguments and addresses the “fifth argument,” in which the author of ʿAbaqāt draws on a version of the Hadith of the Two Weighty Things containing the expression “if you hold fast to it” (إن اعتصمتم به) to establish the obligation to follow the Ahl al-Bayt (peace be upon them). The article is organized into two parts. The first examines the meaning of iʿtiṣām in Sunni commentaries and lexical sources, demonstrating that the term is repeatedly explained as “clinging firmly,” “holding fast,” adhering to religion and obedience, and taking refuge in something that protects against falling and going astray. Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s discussion is particularly important here: in addition to defining iʿtiṣām as “holding fast to something,” he explains the metaphor of the “rope” on the basis of the saving role of holding fast. The second part moves beyond the lexical discussion: a number of Sunni scholars identify the Ahl al-Bayt (peace be upon them), ʿAlī (peace be upon him), or the Prophet’s progeny as referents of the “rope of God” in the verse “And hold fast, all together, to the rope of God.” In some reports, this interpretation is linked directly to the Hadith of the Two Weighty Things, to the extent that the Book of God and the Prophet’s progeny are described as “two ropes,” to both of which the community is commanded to hold fast. The verses attributed to Imam al-Shāfiʿī concerning the “rope of God,” the “ark of salvation,” and the “saved sect,” together with Aḥmad ʿUjaylī’s explicit statement of “the obligation to hold fast to their words, deeds, and states,” constitute two prominent pieces of evidence in this part. The conclusion is that the fifth argument, taken on its own, renders the conception of the Prophet’s progeny as merely objects of love and respect incompatible with a network of lexical, exegetical, and hadith evidence, and challenges the claim that the Hadith of the Two Weighty Things has absolutely no connection with the religious authority of the Ahl al-Bayt.